Flawless (18 page)

“I don’t know,” she said sadly.

“But how—”

“Danny,” she interrupted him, “please. I don’t have any answers for you. Not tonight. But I’ll think of you, I promise.” Reaching into her purse, she pulled out the ring box. Clicking it open, she slipped the sparkling band onto her finger. “Every time I look at this.”

And before he could think of anything else to say, she’d gone, closing the apartment door behind her.

G
AZING OUT THE
taxi window as the driver sped through the Scottish countryside, Scarlett thought again how beautiful the Banffshire landscape was in autumn. Thanks to the swaths of evergreen forests, their pines and fir trees crammed together like battalions of Nordic sentries, it wasn’t an entirely russet view. Some might say that the intermingling of dark-green leaves with the amber of the deciduous woods made the Scottish autumn less dramatic, less striking than the uniform golden blanket of somewhere like Vermont, or even the New Forest. But to Scarlett the contrasting colors heightened the season’s charms. Throw in the pale-gray granite architecture and vast, low sky with its deadened light, like a ceiling of frosted glass, and the overall effect was one of such romantic wilderness it was impossible not to be seduced, even without the sentimental attachments of childhood.

“There she is; look,” said the taxi driver, as the tips of Drumfernly’s turrets inched into view above the treetops. “Is it guid to be home, miss?”

“It is,” said Scarlett wistfully. “Actually, it really is.”

Tomorrow was Hugo’s birthday, his seventieth, and a huge ball with reels and bagpipers had been organized for tonight. Scarlett, who hadn’t been home since Christmas, had had
predictably mixed feelings about the trip. She was looking forward to seeing her father and to giving him the gift she’d been making for him for the past four months—a beautiful pair of enamel-and-platinum cuff links in the colors of the Drummond Murray tartan. She was also grateful for the chance to get away from London and all the pressures at work that seemed to have been piling ever higher onto her shoulders with each month that passed.

Despite the awful incident with her car, the disappearing suppliers and customers, and the threatening letters and phone calls she was still receiving regularly (she’d given up reporting them to the police, who plainly didn’t give a rat’s ass, but kept a careful log of everything herself), she was working flat out on Trade Fair at the moment. Determined not to give in to Brogan’s crass bullying tactics, she’d just gone public with a new and very successful ad campaign featuring naked black girls apparently being “lanced” by diamond-tipped spears. One image in particular, of a black woman holding up her baby while being shot at with a giant, James Bond–esque revolver firing diamond bullets, caused a furor in all the art and lifestyle magazines, and had even been picked up abroad. It hadn’t hurt that the shot was taken by a world-famous fashion photographer, an old friend of Scarlett’s, nor that Cuypers had made the error of making a public complaint to the Advertising Standards Agency, claiming that the black background, illuminated only by diamonds, was designed to encourage people to link the Trade Fair pictures with their product. (Which of course it was, although Scarlett was thrilled to have the chance to deny any such connection publicly, thus generating yet more attention for her campaign.)

But it wasn’t all good news. Thanks to Brogan’s efforts, Bijoux was still suffering. She’d also been forced to become more security conscious, installing expensive intruder alarms both at the shop and at home and hiring a semipermanent “doggie-guard” for Boxford whenever she was away. Mrs. Minton from downstairs
adored the spaniel and spoiled him rotten, but Scarlett still felt anxious leaving him for more than a few hours. She’d wrestled with her conscience over her decision to fly up to Scotland rather than drive, as it meant a whole three-day weekend without him. But in the end she decided it was simply too much of a slog for such a short trip. She needed a real break and, as long as she avoided any major run-ins with Mummy and Cameron, this was her first chance all year to have one.

“Actually,” she said, as the driver swung the gray Land Rover into the bumpy driveway, “can you leave me here? I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Are ye sure?” he asked, pulling over. “It’s still a guid mile up to the castle, you know.”

“I know.” Scarlett smiled. “I grew up here, remember?”

“Aye, course you did.” The driver blushed. “Silly o’ me. But are you sure you want me to leave you?” He looked awfully doubtful, as if she’d asked him to set her down in the middle of Mogadishu.

“Quite sure, honestly,” said Scarlett. “I’ll enjoy the walk, and my bag’s not heavy. How much do I owe you?”

“Darling, good heavens, where did you spring from? And what on
earth
have you been doing? Your face is as flushed as a tomato.”

Caroline Drummond Murray greeted her daughter with her usual tactful grace. Draped over a cream brocade chaise longue in the drawing room, her face and neck covered with Ponds cold cream like a newly iced cake, and with an open copy of the
Telegraph
spread over her knees, she had clearly been enjoying an afternoon siesta when Scarlett walked in.

“It was such a glorious day, I thought I’d walk up the drive,” said Scarlett brightly, determined not to be drawn into an argument
in minute one. “There are so many rabbits running around, it’s like
Watership Down
out there.”

“I know,” drawled Caroline, turning back to the
Telegraph
. “I must remember to tell Duncan to shoot some more of them. He’s getting terribly lazy in his old age.”

“Oh, no Mummy, come on, leave the poor things be,” said Scarlett, horrified. “What harm do they do?”

“Rabbits?” said Caroline. “Is that a serious question? They’re pests, darling, you know that. Let’s try and save our bleeding-heart liberalism for the Africans, shall we, and leave the rabbits out of it?”

“Where’s Daddy?” asked Scarlett, holding her temper with an effort. She might be a bleeding heart, but at least she had a heart to bleed. Sometimes her mother’s callousness was beyond the pale. “I want to give him his present.”

“Well, you can’t,” said Caroline, flicking over to the sports pages. “No family presents until tomorrow; that’s the actual day. It was Daddy’s request,” she added, catching Scarlett’s thunderous look.

“Where is he?”

“Fishing, I think, with Cameron. I’m not sure where they went exactly.”

“Cameron’s here already?” Scarlett raised an eyebrow. “Leaving the office on a weekday? That’s not like him. I’m amazed Goldman Sachs could possibly spare him,” she added, a touch bitterly.

“They can’t,” said Caroline, frostily. “He’s heading back to London first thing tomorrow, for a
weekend
meeting, if you can believe that.”

Scarlett thought of the countless weekends she’d spent working or traveling for Trade Fair but said nothing.

“He’s devoted to Daddy and Drumfernly, but he pushes himself too hard. It was quite an effort for him to get here, never mind being dragged off to that ghastly, cold river the moment he arrives. Your father can be terribly thoughtless at times.”

It hadn’t occurred to Caroline that she hadn’t even gotten up to greet Scarlett, never mind offered her a cup of tea after her long journey. Losing herself in the racing results, she didn’t even notice when Scarlett slunk off to her room to unpack, until the door clunked shut behind her.

Upstairs, Scarlett was looking at the photograph on her dressing table. The only shot she’d kept and framed from her modeling days, typically for Scarlett it was a group picture—showing her clapping with a gaggle of other girls at the end of the Lacroix catwalk show—but she still stood out a mile, her amber eyes glowing like coal embers amid the sea of blonde, blue-eyed beauties, her legs going on for miles beneath the tiniest of black satin mini-dresses.

Gosh, it all seemed like a terribly long time ago now, she thought with a sigh, kicking off her sneakers and flopping down on the bed. On the chair in the corner, Caroline had already laid out the rust-colored taffeta dress she expected her to wear for the party tonight, the same hideous puffball monstrosity she’d worn to every Drumfernly cocktail party and hunt ball since she turned eighteen. Aware that her mother was envious of her youth and good looks—Scarlett’s brief success as a model had been very hard for Caroline—she rarely protested at being forced to dress as one of the ugly sisters at home. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone of any interest was going to be there tonight. She was here for her father, who she very much doubted would notice if she turned up naked and sprayed in silver paint, much less in her familiar getup as an eighties prom queen.

By seven o’clock, the “carriages” had started arriving in force—ancient Land Rovers mostly, or Volvos splattered so liberally with mud they could have doubled as army camouflage vehicles—and a battalion of tweed- and taffeta-clad matrons, their pearls glinting in the moonlight, crunched their way across the gravel and into the ballroom. Once inside, they sheared off from their kilted,
red-faced husbands like so many teenagers at a school dance, congregating in same-sex groups, the better to gossip about the latest scandal at the Women’s Institute or the whispers about the new gay vicar at Aberfeldy.

“Caroline, darling, you look divine,” one of the husbands gushed admiringly as she greeted him at the door. “What a goddess! The old boy couldn’t ask for a better birthday present.”

“Oh, Jock, you’re too sweet,” Caroline simpered, happily. “I’ve had this dress for years. Do go on in.”

In fact, the clinging, gray floor-length number from Ann Taylor had been shipped up to Scotland at great expense two weeks ago, since when a legion of local seamstresses had altered it almost daily until it fit Caroline’s lithe body like a second skin. With her dark hair piled up on top of her head in a more intricate version of her usual severe bun and all the Drummond Murray family diamonds at her throat, ears, and wrists, she looked positively regal. Thanks to the cold cream, her skin also glowed like moonlight. Tonight, for once, Scarlett would have a tough time upstaging her, she thought happily.

Meanwhile Hugo, the birthday boy, looked faintly ridiculous standing beside her. Short, round, and happy in his tattered kilt, and already three sheets to the wind on malt, he looked like Snow White’s drunken pet dwarf.

By the time Scarlett came downstairs, the party was already in full swing, with all the usual suspects getting stuck in to the booze and swaying mindlessly to the same Scottish dances played at every Banffshire party since time immemorial.

“About time.” Cameron, immensely pleased with himself in white ruffled shirt, kilt, and knee socks, his sporran, or traditional purse, perched obscenely over his groin like a Highland toupee, grabbed her by the arm. “Where’ve you been all afternoon? Poor Mummy’s been run off her feet.”

“I fell asleep,” said Scarlett, hitching a rust taffeta puff-sleeve back up onto her shoulder. She’d lost a lot of weight, thanks to
the stress of the last few months, and the dress was constantly threatening to fall off her tiny frame. “I’ve had a hell of a week. Besides, Mummy’s spent the entire afternoon on the sofa. It’s Mrs. Cullen who’s done everything, as usual. Anyway, you can’t talk. You’ve been fishing all day with Dad.”